Has anyone used a naturopath to treat food alleriges and asthma? I'm considering for our son. His Doctors are amazing and things are "under control" however he's only 4 and I keep wondering if there's more that I can do for him? My husband and I have never been to a naturopath but are considering...If anyone has any experineces please let us know

Both my children have eczema, and I went to see an ND with each of them to sort it out without the use of steroid medication. This is before we noticed them having actual food allergies as they were in the 6-9 month old range. With both kids, they did a type of scan - first was a vega scan and second time it was a biomeridian scan to figure out what foods/substances they were sensitive to and thus causing their eczema. Both times I was given a pretty long list of foods to avoid - wheat, sugar, egg, dairy, corn, etc. The lists were slightly different, but had those main components to them.

I tried for around 6 weeks to adhere to a strict diet without these foods, and found it made little difference for their skin until my son's skin suddenly got better, but this is after I was trying about 5 different things, and the weather changed. I'm still not sure what did it, and now the eczema is back, but not nearly as bad.

This is not to say that it doesn't work, because I have heard first hand accounts from people who say an elimination diet does work. Some people find it easier to cut out all foods except for 1 item per food group ie rice, turkey, squash and pear. They would then eat only those foods for 2 weeks, hopefully see an improvement, and slowly add one food at a time and monitor closely the results. This type of diet just requires extreme will power, and is hard to do for most people (including myself, which is why I've never tried. Also my DH is not entirely supportive of alternative medicine which makes it tough for me to try things like this).

Some NDs use homeopathy to treat allergies as well, which is again contraversial or a godsend, depending on who you talk to.

I also tried www.naet.com which is a type of acupunture, and really have no idea whether it worked or now. After I found out about my DD's peanut allergy, I went back to the NAET doctor and asked her to treat her for peanut specifically. She told me that she had treated several people with severe food allergies. After the treatment, the body needs time to adjust and will slowly become less allergic. She said that out of all her patients, they have all shown an improvement within a few years, and have shown lower RAST scores, etc.

Again, it's really impossible to tell if this works or not, and therefore highly contraversial. I saw a few heated threads on peanutallergy.com about this.

Obviously, my hope is that does work, and that while my DD may never be able to eat peanuts, she won't have reactions from trace amounts.

I'm not against certain homeopathic or Chinese medicine practices - in fact, I find acupuncture quite helpful to my bad wrist and often strained shoulder.

But pls know that the vega machine is highly disputed as means of testing for food allergies. And many allergy experts I've interviewed as the editor of AL mag. say that, especially when dealing with children, you should be careful about placing too many restrictions on diets based on these kind of tests.

The result can be children missing out on important nutrients when they don't need to be. (Which I'm certain is no one's intended goal).

For food allergy testing, the tests performed by certified allergists are still the best. I know the imprecision of skin-prick and blood tests can be annoying, but they usually point you in the right direction.

Thanks so much everyone! This is very helpful. I'm still in research mode and have not made a final decision but it helps so much to hear from others. I just heard from my son's Allergist and his RAST test result to egg came back negative. He will be doing the oral challenge at her office in November and my fingers are crossed. He's still allergic to peanuts and sesame seeds but to be free of the egg allergy would be so wonderful.
Thanks again!

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